Darkness Englulfing

Chapter Seven

Katherine

When she awoke for the third time, she thought she was still asleep. It wasn't just the unbreakable darkness that made her think this, but also the immense silence. It seemed to consume her, and her ears began ringing just to escape from the lack of noise. That is, until she heard the first dripping sound.

It was so sudden that it made her jump, bringing Katherine out of her stupor to realize that she actually was awake. She still couldn't see, even when she brought her hand up to her face. She tried to see the familiar skin of her palm, but the unnatural darkness blocked her vision even when her hand was less than a mere inch from her retinas.

Feeling the floor around her, it felt cold, like concrete. It reminded her of a basement, and after standing up and having her hands make contact with what felt like a concrete wall, Katherine made the decision that she was in a basement.

The lack of light continued to mess with her. Usually her eyes would've adjusted to the darkness by now, but she still couldn't make out any sort of shapes, even when she tried to look at her hand again. The only thing that she could understand was the constant dripping. She didn't know what it was, but without being able to see she relied mostly on her senses of touching and hearing.

Katherine tried to find a door, but after walking all of the way around the room with her hand on the walls, she decided that, somehow, there wasn't one. She walked around the room again and again. 27 steps on two of the walls, 45 steps on the others. The room was a perfect rectangle. Katherine continued to trace the pattern of the room with her feet, the constant dripping digging into her mind like a tack on a corkboard.

This went on for hours. Drip, drip, drip, silence for a few magnificent moments, and then drip, drip, drip. That was when the repetition changed. Katherine heard something above her. If she was in a horror movie, it would've sounded like footsteps on a squeaky floorboard. But she wasn't in a horror movie, so she couldn't tell what the sound was. But it made the noise twice more and Katherine's heart began racing as she tried to get closer to it, looking up without seeing.

"Help!" She shouted, "Help!" She continued even after the noise stopped, hoping that maybe, just maybe, whatever was up there was intelligent enough to get her some help. She didn't know if it was human, or an animal, or something completely different. She hoped that maybe it would somehow get down here, but after what felt like hours of screaming, she gave up.

By this time, she was on the ground, her shoulders leaned against one of the walls that was 27 steps long. Her throat felt like it had been ripped out four times over. Everytime she breathed in she coughed, and she tasted blood. This was by far the worst place that she had been to on this weird journey through universes that she was experiencing.

The dripping was different now, almost like whatever was dripping was running out of liquid. There was more time between drops, and eventually it slowed even more. It never stopped though, and after regaining energy, Katherine managed to stand up and make her way over to where the dripping was. It was silent for a long time, and she stood under the area where she remembered hearing it, but she wondered if it stopped. It wasn't until she felt the drop on her shoulder, the light sound of a drop of liquid hitting fabric, that she realized it hadn't stopped and she had been right in guessing where it was.

Her legs wobble and she collapses onto the ground, the liquid continuing to hit her shoulder. Each soft pat of the drops hitting her shoulder stopping her from falling asleep. The liquid was warm, and that scared her.

"Help," She tried again, but it was barely more than a whisper. That's when she saw them. All of them, standing on the other side of the room. Everything else was full darkness. Her parents, her birth parents that she hadn't seen in over a year were standing lovingly next to each other, smiling at her before looking at each other sweetly. Her sisters, both her birth sister and her newly met sister, were laughing loudly as they talked to each other. Katherine had always thought that the two would get along. Kat and Josephine were staring at her, serious and stubborn as they both always were. It made Katherine sad to wonder if they were closer than her and Josephine had ever been. She threw that thought out of her mind as she looked at the next two. Aaliyah and Henry, both using their hands to try and draw her over to them. If Katherine had had any energy, she would've moved toward them in a heartbeat.

She tried to make her way toward them, crawling on the floor, the drips of liquid hitting other parts of the clothing. Soft groans came out of her mouth, her hands trying to grip the cold concrete below her but she couldn't get a grip on it. Pain shot up her fingers and through her arms as trying to grip the concrete bent her nails back.

When she glanced back up at all of the people that she loved, they were gone. A cry of anguish came out of her mouth and she laid on her stomach, letting the tears slide over her grime-ridden face. Maybe they would clean her cheeks. Crying did nothing but cause more pain to resonate in her throat. The mucus in her nose became stuffy up and she got a headache. She flipped over to lay on her back and covered her mouth with her hands, forcing herself to quiet.

Katherine closed her eyes, though it made no difference from the blackness that surrounded her. She always moved when she fell asleep. After her tears dried, her eyes were burning even though they were closed. Her breaths calmed and so did her heartbeat. The dripping had stopped now, and Katherine almost missed the noise. Her ears began ringing again and as her eyes closed, she prayed to be somewhere more normal. There was no point in praying to be home. It hadn't worked before, and Katherine was quickly losing hope that it would ever work.

She shifted along the cold floor, her heartbeat echoing due to the immense silence that had taken over. It did nothing to calm Katherine's mind, nor her aching heart. She needed to get as comfortable as she could. She wanted to fall asleep. The sooner that she fell asleep, the sooner she would lead this place. She wanted to think that maybe the next place would be better, but she doubted it based on the way that things were going.

A scratch in her throat made her cough, and once she began coughing, she couldn't seem to stop. Her body writhed with each forceful cough and after she calmed herself down, she was left breathing heavily.

She couldn't seem to doze off, even after what seemed like hours in the dark place. The darkness began getting to her brain. She wondered if she'd ever be able to leave, or sleep, ever again. Maybe whatever took her meant to take her here, brought her the other places just to confuse her. On that line of thinking, Katherine thought this was a type of punishment, a purgatory of sorts.

But as she finally felt the calm, peaceful feeling of sleep come over her brain, she couldn't recall anything that she had done wrong.